The truth about Kanye West’s Vancouver concert cancellation

'Back-to-back dates in this tour are just not realistic,' roadies say

VANCOUVER – The “unforeseen circumstances” that led to the cancellation of Kanye West’s Yeezus tour stop Sunday night didn’t have anything to do with an equipment truck stolen the night before or West’s surprise plans to pop the question to girlfriend Kim Kardashian, according to the crew that sets up the show.

But that hasn’t stopped disgruntled ticket holders from complaining that West bailed on fans to prepare for an elaborate marriage proposal. The Sun received several emails with complaints after news broke Monday that Kardashian was flaunting a sparkly 15-carat diamond on her finger.

“This is insane. He needs to be exposed, how can he do this to people?, wrote one fan, while another said: “Does anyone find it odd that he got engaged last night…usually engagements are something you plan.”

According to a TMZ report, West surprised Kardashian Monday evening by renting out an entire baseball stadium to ask her to marry him. The report said West flew Kardashian to San Francisco and took her to the AT&T Park, home of the Giants, where he had a full orchestra playing one of her favorite songs.

A photo posted by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on Oct 22, 2013 at 8:41am PDT

Though despite the enormous amount of planning a marriage proposal of that magnitude would take, stagehands who helped put together the tour’s kickoff concert Saturday night at Seattle’s Key Arena say the intricate set — which includes a massive oval video screen and a 10-metre-high mountain that a mock Jesus ascends — was a logistical nightmare that needed more time and practice to put up and take down twice in two days.

“The time frame to get this done was not realistic,” said Maynard Smith, the lead rigger in charge of over 100 Key Arena staff who worked with West’s roadies. “Back-to-back dates in this tour are just not realistic at this point.

“They just didn’t have a realistic grasp of the degree of complexity and the time requirements of off-loading and assembling and flying out this whole thing and then deconstructing it packing it and trucking it (to Vancouver).”

Many out-of-town fans bemoaned the logistics of getting back home and either selling their tickets or taking more time off work after news broke Sunday around 2:30 p.m. that the concert was being postponed to Halloween.

The tour crew worked their hardest to erect and tear down the stage without a dry run Smith said, but the time frame was too tight.

International Association of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 15 President Bess Sullivan said she worked Sunday’s Pink concert at Key Arena and had to wait for crew to finish packing up West’s set at 9 a.m.

“It was this giant mountain and it was like an opera set,” Sullivan said, adding that she had heard the aluminum structure had its design overhauled in recent weeks.

Fans are being asked to keep their tickets to the cancelled show, which will be honoured for the Halloween concert that will still feature budding superstar Kendrick Lamar opening. That may be a good thing, as a date further along in the tour usually insures a smoother set design and performance Smith said.

“It’s going to be successful, the (upside) of it is the fan base is probably going to get a better product by putting this off to Halloween,” Smith said. “They did the right thing by not trying to give you a scaled down production.”